(courtesy IMP Awards)
Season 1
Thanks to the raw viewing immediacy that streaming offers, it doesn’t take much for any would-be watcher of a series to be left far behind, very quickly. There is, simply out, way more content than there are hours in the waking day, and by a considerable margin too, and so while the first half of Star Trek: Prodigy‘s debut season arrived in October 2021 and finished up in December the following year, this reviewer, spurred on by the release of season two, has only just arrived at the party. The good news is that Prodigy more than lives up to all the hype, delivering a smart, heartfelt and thoughtfully realised show that channels classic Star Trek thinking and lore with a rambunctiously vivacious sense of fun that easily folds in some more serious elements.
That’s it greatest triumph – this animated gem manages to be gleefully sweet and funny, almost cute in many instances, but without sacrificing some fairly meaty storytelling that finishes in an almost Wolf 359 moment in the final two-parter, “Supernova”. In fact, things start out fairly seriously from the get-go as we get to the inmates of a mining asteroid known as Tars Lamora where a mysteriously grim figure known as the Diviner (John Noble) is searching for something to which he ascribes great importance. He is aided by a nightmarish AI robot known as Drednok (Jimmi Simpson) and together they ensure, along with a legion of wasp-scorpion-like robotic guards, that prisoners like Dal R’El (Brett Gray), who is determined to escape any which way he can, don’t waiver from a secretive mission upon which some great fate rests.
We do, of course, find out what it is the Diviner is after – a state-of-the-art Starfleet ship known as the Protostar, and while no one can explain what it’s doing wedged in the middle of a giant cavity in an asteroid, it does give Dar R’El, and fellow prisoners, engineer Tellarite Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), an energy-based lifeform known as a Medusan, Zero (Angus Imrie), big, red stone-like Brikar, Roh-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui) and a non-verbal but super cute Mellanoid slimeworm known as Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) who is essentially the dog of the crew. Along for the ride, but not willingly at first, is the Diviner’s daughter, Gwyndala (Ella Purnell) who goes on quite the character as she discovers that her view of the galaxy is not quite as accurate as her father would have her believe. Rounding out the cast is a hologram patterned after Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) who takes this ragtag bunch of goodhearted rebels, who quickly become one of the loveliest and most supportive found families this reviewer has ever had the pleasure to journey with, and moulds them into something close to a decent Starfleet crew. That takes some doing in one sense because stuck in the dark of an asteroid, and cut off from the galaxy at large, they don’t know who the Federation is, what it stands for and why they should care about it.
So, Janeway becomes their tutor and mentor and over the course of twenty beautifully wrought and wonderfully funny and affecting episodes, all realised with vivid animation that is as robustly immersive as the show’s highly literate and emotionally evocative scripts, this group of thrown together and highly disparate beings come the family they always longed to belong to. That journey isn’t quite that simply though but all the way through Prodigy’s first season, we see them all grow and evolve and fall in love with the idea of the Federation and all the good and just things it represents. While there’s plenty of actions, and some fine standalone episodes in classic Trek style (“All the World’s a Stage” and “Time Amok” to name just two of the standouts) which keeps the narrative barrelling imaginatively along, what really stays with among the Freaky Friday and Return of the Jedi moments, is how wonderfully caring and inclusive Prodigy‘s characters. You fall headlong in love with them as they fall in love with the idea of the Federation, and while there’s a lot of arc storytelling throughout, what really stands out is how much this show is a love letter to Star Trek and the idea of belonging and family and living for something far greater than yourself. Prodigy has it all – a ripping great story, so much heart and a found family that defies the odds and saves the day, and it does it all with guts and humour and vibrancy and enthusiasm that makes you fall for the franchise all over again as you’re reminded why Star Trek at its best, and that’s definitely Prodigy in just about every possible way, is one of the best bastions of sic-fi storytelling out there because it doesn’t just go imaginatively big but it does it with meaning and humanity and leaves you feeling good about things, which is especially important at a time when the world feels like one big dumpster fire.
Star Trek: Prodigy season one is currently streaming on Netflix.
Season 2
If ever there is a crying need for a near-flawless example of how a series can build on its exemplary introductory first season, which are by necessity, fairly expositionally heavy, then Star Trek: Prodigy season two should be Exhibit A with a bullet, swathed in glowing neon and with a huge arrow pointing at it, saying “Here is a perfect sophomore season; look no further!” It is, quite simply, a knock-it-out-of-the-park wonder which bursts with imagination, expansively breathtaking world-building, rich and meaningful character development and one of the best pieces of serialised storytelling this reviewer has ever had the privilege to see. On top of that storied, starry-eyed list of well-deserved accolades, season two of Prodigy manages, quite miraculously, to pay all kinds of homage to the franchise (Voyager most obviously but also Next Generation and even, amusingly, Lower Decks) without once slowing down its storytelling or compromising the emotional power and originality of its narrative. It takes all this masterful storytelling, which is so imaginatively expansive that you have to keep pausing just to glory in a succession of very clever ideas and astonishingly brilliant execution, and adds to it a profoundly impactful love letter to the power of found family, love, belonging and purpose.
Star Trek, of course, has always had a strong sense of “together we are strong” percolating through all of its iterations, and is no stranger to the power of found families to reshape and transform lives in wholly good and lasting ways, but Prodigy‘s second season takes that focus and elevates even further, gifting us a depiction of lives changes and worlds altered simply because fate, time and circumstance brought and kept a bunch of disparate beings together. It not only gladdens the heart but it adds immeasurable, affecting richness to the storytelling so that epic action moments and huge twists are just impactful in their own right but feel lastingly meaningful because they are happening to people who you come to regard as family.
Quite marvellously for a season where the stakes are high and disaster looms at just about every juncture, Prodigy season is also a lot of FUN. Somehow in the middle of rising to the occasion over and over again and proving that they are more than worthy of entering Starfleet Academy, Dal R’El (Brett Gray), Gwyndala (Ella Purnell), Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), Zero (Angus Imrie), Roh-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) and newcome Vulcan Maj’el (Michaela Dietz) have an absolute ball being with each other, working together effectively and with exuberant joy all while somehow retaining the sheer excitement of their new lives even though a ton of things like time-bending sociopath and chrono-monsters come their way. They just love LIFE and everything that possible now they have escaped their asteroid prison on a Federation ship, the Protostar, and while season two presents them with a very real possibility of losing everything thanks to a ———- SPOILER AHEAD !!!!! ———- broken timeline, they are rarely down, and individually and collectively stay the course with a vivacity that is a joy to behold. That’s not to say they don’t get down at times, and the writers of Prodigy keep things grounded and authentic and don’t pretend every day is an upbeat, popcorn-bursting, bluebird-of-happiness moment, but they keep going back to the fact that they are together, they are living their dream and evoking their best life, and it’s this garrulous tenacity that powers Prodigy as much as any of the other superlative elements in its armoury.
Season two is also heavy on what Doctor Who called the timey-wimey-ness of things, and part of what makes this batch of 20 Prodigy episodes work so damn well is that all the time travel feels intricately, cleverly set up and masterfully, impressively executed. In an interview with Collider, creators and brothers Dan and Kevin Hageman, said they went to all kinds of trouble to make sure they got it right.
At the end of Season 1, we were starting to put this stuff together because we knew if we ever did a Season 2, you had Gwyn going to current Solum, you had Chakotay in future Solum. So we, as a writers’ room, were drawing it out on the whiteboard. It was some ridiculous drawing. But thank god, we went to our doctor, Erin Macdonald, our science advisor, and she, as our theoretical physicist, took this and was like, “Yeah, this could work!” She did a much better drawing for us, like, “Yes! We can do this.” [Laughs]
If you’ve ever sat through a time travel-centric story thought “This just not make sense” then do yourself a favour and throw yourself into the chronological back and forth of Prodigy season two which darts back and forth and all over the place and yet always feels like it all makes sense. Sure that’s a gut level, intangible kind of reaction but part of what makes the season so satisfying is feeling like something so intimately important to the story’s success actually well and truly sticks the landing. It’s intellectually satisfying and thrilling too and added to all the emotional evocation of characters who have a lot on the line, makes for a narrative that dazzles with imagination, beguiles with real heart and wraps you in a magical storytelling that keeps the mind and the soul happy simultaneously. It’s exemplary storytelling of the highest order and you can only be infinitely grateful that Prodigy got another shot at life (it was cancelled by Paramount before being picked up by Netflix who have yet to confirm a third but desperately hoped-for third season) and that it keeps getting to tell a story which loves its characters, is happy to go there, anywhere for a superbly engaging narrative, and which knows that while epic is big and good, it’s nothing with a heady dose of moving humanity which this series has in spades.
Star Trek: Prodigy season two is currently streaming on Netflix.